My picking progress thread

Technique Critique
#9

Well, here’s the other video I promised. I"m using UWPS because I find my playing less string hoppy when I use UWPS. Having studied this video myself I can see that my ascending picking technique still looks a little string hoppy.

I will post a video of me playing the same run with DWPS, but I just can’t get it to an acceptable level at the minute as it’s quite sloppy and I feel that, when I’m using DWPS, I’m kind of fighting against myself even more so than UWPS.

I think what’s interesting here is that I go out of time when I change from the low E to high A string - I always have problems in this area for some reason and I don’t know why!

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#10

I’m the opposite man. I’m bad at UWPS. Practice in DWPS only for a while. You’ll get better.

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#11

I’m gonna give this lick another shot tonight with pure DWPS.

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#12

Heres another DWPS lick, I kind of floated out of time towards the end:

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#13

Good work on this! The uwps clip is a big improvement. You are correct that the hopping in this clip is either gone, or at least greatly reduced. Are you intentionally rest stroking in uwps here, or is it just the anchoring setup that is promoting the smoother movement?

Either way, this is now a movement that can be sped up. You can use uwps phrases like this that switch strings. And you can also use single-string phrases, like the Yngwie six-note pattern, or DiMeola / Moore sixes (three notes repeated in place, asc or desc). If you’re doing single string practice, don’t worry about the fact that the Yngwie phrase is a dwps phrase when you start on a downstroke, because you’re not switching strings with it. You’re just using it as a device for speed practice. You can of course also use it starting on an upstroke, in which case it becomes a uwps string-switching phrase.

Either way is fine. In fact I’d try all of the above — diversity of practice material, within the same physical hand setup, is good because it gives you multiple ways to recognize and cement the feel of that setup.

Also, don’t get too hung up on metronome usage. Shut if off and just go for speed and fluidity, at whatever speed that happens for you. Whatever helps you learn the feel of this new setup is good in the long run. If you shut off the click and just try to do this new movement as fast as you can, how fast does it go currently?

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#14

Also good work here. The ascending side of this looks great. The descending side is still hoppy. Can you see the lifting movement you’re doing with the upstroke/pulloffs? That’s wrist extension, like revving a motorcycle hand grip. That’s a remnant of your previous technique creeping back in. If you want to keep practicing this dwps form, try not to ‘lift’ the upstrokes. If your form is correct, the picking motion itself will clear the strings, so there is no need to boost it with the lift. If it helps, instead of an “upstroke”, think “left stroke” in your mind. That will help your hand move sideways instead of hopping.

Otherwise, keep up the good work here. You’re going to be a whole new player in a month or so.

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I'm desperate for guidance
#15

Hello @Troy!

Thanks for your analysis and response - your comments are very encouraging for me to read.

With regards to my first clip - I’m not consciously using rest strokes, I think it’s the anchoring movement and the fact that I am very comfortable with UWPS that is making things smoother. I’m concentrating on mostly UWPS for the time being, but with some DWPS thrown in as well. It was actually when you said that my grip was very Paul Gilbert like that it made me think “well, PG is an UWPS, so I should try to work on that for a while”.

With regards to the second clip - yes I see that descending lifting type movement now. I’d never thought of using a “left stroke” as you put it to move over the string, that’s something very interesting that I’ve never heard before. I don’t have my guitar with me right now, but I’m going to have to try this out tomorrow.

Once again thank you. I will post another video in a lot of weeks so my progressed can be assessed by the experts on the forum.

Best wishes.

#16

I edited the thread title as I plan to keep this thread as a diary of sorts of my progress.

Here is my attempt at a two way pick slanting lick. After watching the footage I feel the first attempt was smooth and less string hoppy. Well, I’ll leave it to the experts to decide:

#17

I agree that this looks less string hoppy, but my short suggestion is to follow advice similar to in @Hanky_Pooh 's thread: spend more of your time working on ramping up the speed of simpler (in the 2WPS case, 2 string) licks, to ensure that you’re not spending a lot of time training movements on 6-string exercises that may turn out to have a low “speed ceiling”. Work on speeding up simpler licks to figure out what the “high ceiling” movement should look and feel like.

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#18

To me this looks more or less like your old motion. We can debate how hoppy it is or isn’t, but that’s an academic question because if it’s hoppy at all, even slightly, then you’ll tire out and won’t be able to speed it up. In general, slow speed attempts like this clip aren’t very valuable as a teaching aid for you because at this tempo, you could probably do this with any picking movement, even all downstrokes.

Your main goal is still to get fast, fluid, straight-line movement happening in a one-way pickslanting scenario. Even on a single string, with a single-position repeating phrase - threes, yngwie six-note pattern, etc.

How fast can you get the uwps movement to happen? Even on a single string, single position, repeating phrase? No metronome, just moving your hand back and forth as fast as possible. That’s the clip I want to see.

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#19

Yeah, what he said. :wink:

#20

@Troy @Frylock

Here you go guys:

With best wishes.

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#21

Much better! Thanks for the speedy turnaround on this.

There’s some guitar shake, and I think it’s elbow movement causing that. This happens even when I use deviation movements, and I’m starting to think this is just the way these movements work. A certain amount of stealth elbow tension / movement is necessary to fire up the deviation movement. If that’s the case, then let’s assume that you’re doing it correctly.

Then the question is, is this really your current maximum top speed? If so, is that physically determined, or is it simply that you haven’t learned to go faster yet? Meaning is it the case that your ‘real’ top speed is actually higher, and we have to unlock it with more athletic training / motor learning?

Only way to find out is to train this movement for speed. I would suggest you are now in @milehighshred territory. John, what is your recommendation?

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#22

Thank you, @Troy. This the fastest speed that I can go with me playing clean. If I was to play faster, my left and right hands lose co-ordination and it turns to mush, probably because my right hand’s movements become inconsistent due to muscle fatigue.

#23

Ok that’s a different story. I want to see that clip. We’re not trying to promote accuracy at this very moment. We’re training your hand to make a new movement, one it is unfamiliar with. And we are simultaneously training the physical aspect so you can go faster at it.

One part of this is what we might think of the ‘motor learning’ aspect, e.g. learning to ride the bike. Then the other side of that coin is building more aerobic capacity / neural firing speed so you can pedal it faster.

You’ve spent years with a different movement at moderate speeds, so you’re basically doing both kinds of training right now. Foremost, we want to know how physically fast you can move your picking hand with this new movement, so that we can be sure you are doing it smoothly enough to speed it up. Do it sloppily if you must. That’s fine - you’ll clean it up later. You can also try leaving out the fretting hand as well.

Again, I’d defer to John on these sorts of topics, but by all means make that movement go as fast as you can make it go, and let us know where the upper limit really is.

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#24

I’ll defer to @Troy and @milehighshred , but for what it’s worth, my experience supports the principles Troy is talking about. The roots of my fast alternate picking mechanics (forearm rotation DWPS for me, at least in the beginning) came from doing very simple “tremolo picking” licks (e.g. the tremolo bit near the end of the solo in Van Halens “Dreams”) as fast as I could without a metronome.

Edit: Just listened to “Dreams” and Eddie actually doesn’t tremolo pick as much as I did in my interpretation. Same principle applies though: slow, simple fretting hand with notes being repeated fast with picking. Another example would be the tremolo picked “violin exercise” part in “Eruption”. For starters you could even just do one open string by itself, or one fretted note by itself.

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#25

Thanks guys! Tomorrow I will post an all out speed video.

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#28

Me too.

Watching the video tells me no, @aliendough, you have not reached your top speed. And, you’ll basically get the same answer I tell everyone else who wants to play fast, and that’s metronome, metronome, METRONOME!

It’s very odd anyone can play very fast just because they can. Again, linking shred guitar with weight training, most people need to slowly build strength over time. With guitar, most people need to build their top speed, slowly, over time. Proper metronome practice will not only get you faster but help make sure both hands are synced up properly. I have yet to see it fail.

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#29

I’ll agree 100% that the metronome is the most efficient way to get the fretting synched up with the picking, but I disagree vehemently with any claim that the metronome is necessary for the “athletic” component of speed development.

Speed training in athletic domains is not a regimented incrementaly measured endeavor like weight training is.

World class sprinters like Usain Bolt don’t train their cadence with a metronome, gradually working up from low BPM to fast. Sure, sometimes they’ll work at less than their maximum speed in order to perform technique optimization, but that’s not about locking into a specific sub-max tempo, it’s about going slow enough to be able to make prescribed corrections to technique, regardless of the exact tempo.

And sometimes sprinters do practice where they are trying to maintain a consistent tempo, but that’s again about finding a technique sweet spot below maximum speed, not about matching tempo to an external rhythm.

And if we look to nature, cheetahs, horses and foxes don’t learn to run fast by using a metronome.

Is metronome training in music important? Absolutely. But it’s importance isn’t in connections with the raw athletic component of speed development. When it comes to doing something musical with whatever speed you do have? Yeah, absolutely there needs to be metronome work.

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#30

Yeah, I was thinking something similar. If I try to approach my max speed gradually from ‘below’, My hands/arms may get too tired before I get to the desired tempo. So sometimes it feels useful to warmup a bit and then try to play as fast as I can immediately. In the end both types of practice can be useful.

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